Welcome to Film Education's Maths+Movies resource.

TEACHERS:

Real World Maths

These online activities accompany the Maths+Movies interactive disc. They aim to provide learners with a stimulating and creative approach to using and applying the mathematical concepts that are taught at upper Primary level. Using the world of film distribution as the context, pupils will work with all aspects of maths – from partitioning to fractions to shape, space, measure and data handling.

Respecting Creativity

Whilst giving pupils a real-world context for maths, the activities also aim to encourage children to think about the value of seeing a film at the cinema. Children will have access to some ‘behind the scenes’ information from a film industry perspective, and in learning about the business of film distribution, they will gain an understanding of the fairness of paying for a film that is chosen and viewed at the cinema, rather than taking it for free.

These activities will help to move pupils on from learning how to do the maths to learning why we use these methods – i.e. understanding the maths behind the day-to-day numbers that we use in a real-world context. Each section has its own theme, outlined in its title.

PUPILS:

These activities will help you to learn and revise some of the regular maths you do in class, but from the point of view of somebody in the film industry. In order to carry out the activities, you will have to become a movie producer, a copyright crusader and a film synopsis wordsmith.

The tasks are aimed at 9–11 year olds. You are expected to be able to cope with some big words and some big mathematical concepts. To help you with the big words, we’ve given you a glossary. To help you with the maths, we’ve given you instructions, working out spaces and roll over answers where needed. Don’t cheat! Be sure to try to work it out before you look at the answer!

What you will be learning

The activities on this website will help you to get better at using and applying your partitioning skills when you add up big numbers as a film producer. You’ll also be working with fractions when you work out how much of your total box office is lost to people who don’t bother to pay for their tickets to see your film at the cinema. You’ll be analysing and interpreting film data contained in a synopsis into the most unlikely frequency diagram you’ve ever seen.